Baseball Report: Orioles Allowing Home Runs At Record Pace

(CBS Baltimore/CBS Local Sports) — The home runs keep coming. MLB as a whole is on pace to smash the season home run record of 6,105, set in 2017. The Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros are all on pace to beat the season record for a team of 267, set by the Yankees in 2018.

In a season they’d rather forget, the Baltimore Orioles have hit a respectable 155 home runs so far. But that’s 100 fewer than their pitching staff has given up. And it’s that unfortunate total, which seems to increase with every game, which will soon give the team another distinction they’d rather not have: the record for most home runs allowed in the season. Since it’s still August, the record could stand for a long time.

Pete Alonso continues to be a home run machine for the New York Mets. The rookie first baseman now holds the National League rookie home run record with over a month left in the regular season. Can his long balls keep his team in the wild card hunt?

Zack Greinke is doing his part to keep his new team, the Houston Astros, atop the American League West. The right-handed pitcher recently won his 200th game, making him only the third active pitcher to reach the milestone.

The Orioles, 39-85 and last in the AL East coming out of the weekend, continue to suffer through their nightmare season. But, surprisingly, only last week did it become mathematically impossible for the team to win the American League East. They will likely be officially eliminated from wild card contention before the end of August.

Realistically, the Orioles’ playoff hopes were dashed months ago. Beyond the standings and their record, the season has revealed new lows with startling frequency, especially lately. Orioles slugger Chris Davis, batting .179 with nine home runs and 121 strikeouts, went after his manager in the dugout. A few days later, the Houston Astros unloaded a team-record 23 runs on the Orioles in one game. In a recent series with the Yankees, the Orioles tied an MLB record by allowing 16 home runs over three games.

And the indignities continue.

The Orioles have been mostly on the receiving end of this season’s power surge, giving up 255 home runs so far. A week ago, the team broke the AL season record of 242 HRs allowed, a record they had jointly held with the Chicago White Sox since 2017. The 2016 Cincinnati Reds currently hold the MLB season record at 258, which the Orioles will almost certainly break in the coming week.

Their current total puts them on pace to blow past the 300 mark, and end up somewhere just north of 330. The only good news is that the season will end in a little over a month, at which point they can’t give up any more home runs.

Pete Alonso Breaks Rookie HR Record

Mets rookie Pete Alonso continues his storybook season. The team’s rookie first baseman slammed his 40th home run of 2019 in an 11-5 win over the Kansas City Royals on Sunday. The long ball into the left-field stands set a National League rookie record, breaking Dodgers’ Cody Belinger’s rookie record of 39, which he set in 2017. Belinger won National League rookie of the year honors that season.

The Mets’ season record of 41 — set by Todd Hundley in 1996 and tied by Carlos Beltran 10 years later — is well within Alonso’s reach. He also has a shot at the MLB rookie record of 52 home runs, set by Yankees’ Aaron Judge in 2017.

He’d probably prefer a trip to the playoffs over a home run record. The Mets, at 64-60, are currently embroiled in a tight NL wild card race, tied with the Milwaukee Brewers and Philadelphia Phillies at two games out of the final spot. The win over the Royals was their second straight after a five-game losing streak that included four straight losses to NL East teams.

Zack Greinke Wins 200th Game

The Astros control their playoff destiny. And now their starting rotation has another 200-game winner to ride down the stretch. Zack Greinke, recently brought over from the Arizona Diamondbacks, won his third game in an Astros uniform and 200th in the majors.

Greinke allowed one run on six hits in seven innings, as the Astros beat the Oakland Athletics, 4-1, on Sunday. The win helps the Astros continue to hold off the A’s, who are sitting second in the American League West playoff race and don’t seem to want to go away.

Greinke is only the third active pitcher to reach 200 wins. Rotation mate Justin Verlander, who has 219 wins, achieved the milestone almost exactly a year ago, also against the A’s. Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia has 251 wins, the most among active pitchers.